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308 Bibliography
Bauer's
introduction to his book, as follows: " The desire of the publishers to
present to the German public a work on precious stones, similar in
character to that admirably supplied in American literature by George
Frederic Kunz's Gems and Precious Stones of North America, gave
the initiative to the writing of the present book." That the foremost
expert on American gems should be an American, designated as its
official authority by the United States Government, and accepted as
such abroad, and that this American should possess the literary ability
to disseminate the knowledge he has gathered in a popular as well as
strictly scientific fashion, and should have directly caused the
production of the most authoritative book on the gem subject, may be a
source of satisfaction to his compatriots who are patriotic in all
things as well as admirers of gems.
The basis of much of the information extant about gems is the old, but reliable and still standard, A System of Mineralogy, by
James Dwight Dana, published in 1837, in New Haven, Conn. This
text-book, supplemented with Bauer's great book, and with the addition
of Kunz's Gems and Precious Stones of North America to cover
the phase of the general subject involving American gems, contains all
important facts about gems and gem minerals, exclusive of recent
mineralogical and other pertinent scientific discoveries. A valuable
associate to this trio would be the Descriptive Catalogue of the Collections of Gems in the United States National Museum, by Wirt Tassin, Assistant Curator of the Division of Mineralogy. This was reprinted by the Government Printing Office at
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